Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Day Seventeen Tuesday August 17th, 2010

Day Seventeen

Tuesday August 17th, 2010

I can count all my bones.

They look and stare at Me.

-Psalm 22:17

Jesus never had a broken bone. I suppose that if He did, He wouldn’t have been an acceptable sacrifice since you were not allowed to sacrifice your lame sheep to God. Also, since He was whipped with the cat of nine tails, He could probably actually see His bones as He hung on the cross. I don’t think the people they put up on the cross were scourged before hand. Usually, the 39 scourges would kill them. (The sentence was always for forty with one removed for “mercy.”) He was probably a spectacle even to those who often passed by people hanging on the cross. So many people seeing this happen and even those who want to do something cannot. I don’t know if I could have watched. Most disciples fled, but John followed and was there at the foot of the cross. It was John’s mother that asked Jesus if John and James could sit on His right and His left when He came into His kingdom. It was John that said He was able to drink from the cup He drank and be baptized with the baptism that He was baptized. I wonder if John thought about that conversation when He looked at Jesus on the cross. I wonder if He looked at the condemned criminals on His right and His left. I wonder if He contemplated the sign that hung above His head that said in three languages, “King of the Jews.” I wonder if John thought at that point that it was all over. The revolution against Rome was dying on the cross in front of his very eyes. But what John didn’t understand (probably) was that Jesus, with His death, was delivering the fatal blow to sin and death itself. This was the point where the battle was won. When Jesus died on the cross, we could claim victory, even though there is still fighting to do.

In a physical war, the heads of state get together to negotiate a surrender. The two politicians don’t duke it out, but they get out their papers and their pens and one surrenders to the other by signing his name. However, that doesn’t mean the fighting has stopped. The soldiers in the trenches are still fighting. The surrender contract includes a cease fire time and date and the fighting continues until the war is officially called off. Part of the reason this happens is that wars are so big, the word of the surrender takes time to get around. So it’s possible that a soldier can die in a war that was officially over, but the fighting hasn’t stopped yet. That’s where we are today. Sin and death have been beaten. Jesus has claimed victory, but we still fight until the appointed day when we get to go home. We can claim the victory in Christ, or we can believe that the war is not yet one. I choose to fight in victory. I choose to stand my ground because I know I’ve already won and I’m just waiting for the other side to get the memo. What about you?